Warmth
by Kirachu
Summary: Aya, Ken, and only one blanket between them leads to strange situations. Complete.
1. In The Car

**Warmth**  
**by Kira** (kirabop@hotmail.com) 

**Author's Notes:** Written for a 'blanket scenario' challenge I issued on my RanxKen LiveJournal community. ^^ Enjoy. 

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_In the car we were looking for ourselves  
But found each other  
In the car we groped for excuses  
Not to be alone anymore  
In the car we were waiting for our lives  
To start their endings  
In the car   
We were never making love  
_ **--- Barenaked Ladies, "In The Car"**

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**Part One**  
_In The Car_

"It's freezing." 

"I'm aware." 

"I mean it's _really_ freezing." 

Aya closed his eyes and counted very slowly to ten beneath his breath. He was already more than enough irritated to combine it with the constant complaints of his loud companion. His car had broken down in the middle of no where. His cell phone was out of range and thus had no service, making it impossible to call anyone for help. But more importantly than those factors, he was trapped in the middle of no where, in the snow, a broken down car on his hands, and he was alone with Ken. Of all the people in the world, he was broken down in hillbilly no where with Hidaka Ken. 

He sighed and brought a hand up to rub his temple. His patience could only last for so long. Normally he would be able to tolerate being alone with Ken. But under normal circumstances, he had not spent the entire day with the other man. Under _normal_ circumstances, they would pass each other occasionally in the flower shop, and then be forced to work together only when Persia gave them an assignment and they were paired together. But no, this mission was different from the others in that it had taken them miles from Tokyo, into the freezing snow, in the middle of no where. 

"Hey, Aya." 

"What?" 

"Did I mention it's _freezing_?" 

"Ten times." 

"Oh yeah? Well, it's freezing." 

Count to ten again, he heard a voice in his head say. Count to ten and just breathe. 

Just knock his daylights out, said another voice. He was more inclined to listen to the latter. 

He leaned his arms against the hood of the car, propped up to reveal its engine. A frown creased his face. Nothing seemed to be wrong. That was probably the problem. Nothing at all _seemed_ to be wrong, so that meant, naturally, that everything was wrong. Maybe it was the battery. Or it could just be that it was a piece of crap Porsche. He had never wanted a Porsche. It had been from Persia, and he still thought it was some sort of joke he and Manx had been playing on him. 

Ken was suddenly beside him, looking over his shoulder. Aya unconsciously took a step away from him. Ken either did not notice or did not care. 

"Your battery is dead," he said. 

Aya spared him a glance. "How do you know?" 

"Because your battery is freaking dead." He sighed, turning around to sit on the front of the car. "And we can't get Youji and Omi. We're stuck." 

"Thanks for stating the obvious." 

"Anytime," Ken shot back. He folded his arms. "If we're stuck together, you could at least make the effort to be nice. Just one evening in your entire life is all I ask." 

"Let me think." Aya paused. "No." 

"Jackass." 

Aya ignored him. With a barely contained sigh, he lowered the hood of the car back over its innards. So, trapped in the middle of no where with no phone and no working car. He wondered how long it would be until Youji and Omi even realized they were not coming back. Probably not until the next morning, knowing them. Wonderful. He was skipping for joy on the inside, truly. 

"It's going to get colder," Ken said. He wrapped his arms around himself, rubbing uselessly at his shoulders for warmth. The thin jacket he wore could only do so much to ward the cold away. "When it gets darker," he continued. "It'll be cold." 

"The car is dead," Aya said. "So the heater is too." 

"Yeah, I know. We're gonna be popsicles." 

Probably, Aya thought. They only had the clothes they wore, Ken in his jeans, t-shirt and jacket, he in his trench coat. He wore a turtleneck beneath it, but the material was thin. He could already feel the cold seeping in. Tucking his hands into the pockets of his jacket in a vain attempt to warm them, he glanced around. They had passed no houses driving back, no businesses, nothing. There was not even a light glimmering somewhere in the distance. They were, indeed, in the middle of no where. 

"I have a blanket in the trunk," he said suddenly. 

He went around the back of the car and inserted his keys into the lock of the trunk. The blanket was old, most likely covered in dust. He didn't remember when he had stashed it back there. Someone had once told him it was best to be prepared for any situation. Not knowing quite what that meant, he had shoved the blanket and a first aid kit in the trunk of his car, and then forgotten completely about them. It figured. 

"One blanket between the two of us." Ken stared blandly down at the old, disheveled heap. "Great." 

"Beggars can't be choosers." 

"Thanks, Dad." 

Aya pulled the blanket out of the confines of the trunk and shoved it at Ken. "You take it." 

Ken stared at him blankly, gripping the fabric between his gloved fingers. "What about you?" 

"I have my jacket." Aya opened the driver's side door and slid in. "You can have the backseat." 

He heard Ken muttering something under his breath, and imagining it to be something that was hardly flattering, ignored him. Folding his arms over his chest, he leaned back against the seat and lowered his head. He was tired. It had been a long day at the flower shop filled with dozens upon dozens of school girls, Youji shamelessly flirting with all of them, and Omi squeaking when one would get too close to him. Then there had been a mission briefing and away they had gone. The target was dead. One less worry on his mind. And so he fully intended to sleep, broken down car or no broken down car. Cold or no cold. He would still sleep. 

But apparently the gods above did not want him to. He listened as Ken twisted around in the backseat, clothing rustling against the blanket and the leather seats. He listened as he made small sounds of frustration when he could not find a comfortable enough position. He listened and had a strong urge to throttle the younger man. 

"Ken." 

"Don't say it," Ken growled. "Your backseat sucks." 

"Deal with it." 

"Always glad to have your comfort." 

Ignoring and counting to ten never seemed to work with Ken. Somehow the other man always managed to break through when he attempted to ignore him, and when he tried to count to ten, Ken had done something to irritate him before he was even finished. Nothing ever worked. Ken would always be able to get a rise out of him. And these days, he wasn't sure if it bothered him as much as he pretended it did. 

"Are you sure you're gonna be okay up there?" Ken interrupted his thoughts once again. 

"Yes. Just go to sleep." 

"Okay, okay..." 

He waited and listened. Ken did not make another sound. Aya closed his eyes. Maybe he would be able to get some sleep after all. 

That was, of course, if the cold did not kill him. He had thought it was nothing. The snow continued to fall outside of the car and the temperature continued to drop as night descended, but it should have been at least warmer in the car, he in his two layers of clothing. But it crept in and froze places he did not think could be cold. His nose and ears were beginning to feel numb. 

He exhaled and was not surprised to see his breath come out chilled in the air. 

He tightened his arms around his chest. Harsher conditions he had endured. Intense cold, intense heat, it was nothing. Or so he tried to convince himself it was nothing. It was just snow, after all. Snow had never killed anyone. 

Below zero temperatures, yes, but not snow. 

"Aya?" 

He cracked open a single eye. "What?" 

"Are you _sure_ you're okay?" 

"Yes. Go to sleep." 

Ken made an irritated sound below his breath. Aya heard the rustle of movement, and before he could snap for Ken to not move and to just sleep, a hand had snaked out of the darkness toward him. Fingers brushed along his cheek, an almost careless touch. 

"Jesus, Aya, you're freezing." 

He pushed the hand away. "It's all right." 

"It's not. Come sit in the back. We'll share the blanket." 

"There's no room," Aya intoned quietly. 

Ken snorted. "There's plenty of room. Get your ass back here before I drag you back here." 

His smile was barely contained as he opened up the driver's side door and stepped out into the frigid air. He smiled because he knew that Ken was not joking. If he did not come on his own, Ken would have dragged him back, kicking and screaming all the way if he had to. It was a battle he would not win. Rather than do it the hard way, he came willingly on his own, walking around the car and opening up the back door. Ken moved over to allow him room to get in. 

Ken unfolded the blanket from around him and held it up, giving Aya a place to slide in under its warmth. The backseat was small and held only both of them if they pressed together. The blanket was smaller and forced them to sit even closer, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, heads nearly touching. But it was warm. The heat from Ken's own body was absorbed into the blanket, and beneath it, Aya could feel his limbs and digits warming. 

"I guess it's not the most comfortable position to sleep in," Ken said, keeping his tone light-hearted. He shifted and felt his leg hook over Aya's. He did not bother to move it. "But it's better than freezing to death," he added. 

"Yeah." 

"Still cold?" 

"Better." 

Aya felt a hand groping beneath the folds of the blanket. A hand touched his own. The fingers were warm, unlike his own. 

"Nope. Still cold." Ken grinned. "Here." He felt something being pressed into his hands and took a moment to realize that it was Ken's gloves. He fumbled with them beneath the blanket before finding their opening and slipping his fingers in. They were warm still. 

"Do you think Youji and Omi will be able to find us?" 

Aya glanced at him. He could barely see him, even through the corner of his eye, not with their heads bent so close together. He could see a lock of brown veiling identically brown eyes and nothing else. 

"Probably," he answered. They would be able to find them. Though their phones were out of service, Youji and Omi would be able to put two and two together and find them. As much as Aya liked to claim that Youji was an idiot, he was more intelligent than he gave him credit for. And he had never doubted Omi. 

"Yeah, I guess so." 

"Are you going to sleep or not?" 

"It's not even past eight!" 

"Well, I'm tired now." 

Ken sighed. "Come on, Aya, when are we gonna get to spend quality time together like this again?" He grinned, an infuriatingly amused grin that had Aya wanting to punch him and smile back all at the same time. He chose instead to look away from him, gaze falling to stare out the window. The snow continued to fall, now in heavy sheets. He could see nothing but white. 

"Quality time?" he asked. 

"Whatever you want to call it." 

Aya shook his head. "It's not quality time." 

"So time with me isn't quality?" 

"It's just time with you," Aya said slowly, puzzling over his own words. "It's just... time." He shrugged, helplessly. "I always spend time with you." 

"We don't talk." 

"We talk." 

"Not naturally." 

Aya paused. "No," he agreed. 

He was right that they talked. They did. They spoke of missions. They spoke when working in the flower shop. But they rarely ever spoke naturally, as friends would. Sometimes they were able to talk about anything but what was solid in their lives, what was always there, and to have something resembling a natural conversation. But he had always felt awkward in those moments. As though they shouldn't. As though talking as friends, more than mere companions, was passing over some unseen line that they had put down. 

"What do you want to talk about?" 

Ken shook his head. "Nothing. Nothing, really." 

Aya leaned his head back against the seat. "Soccer?" 

"Yeah, soccer." Ken laughed softly. "You hate soccer." 

"You always break things when you mess around with that ball of yours. You would hate it too if you were me." 

Ken laughed again, a more amused sound this time, less soft and mirthless. "Okay. Point. What do you like then?" 

"What do you mean?" 

"What do you do for fun?" 

Aya was silent a moment. Fun had ceased to be a priority in his life. Now, when he had free time on his hands, he would use it to take walks through the city, or to lock himself in his room to read a book. But it was only small things that he used to fill up the void between missions and working in the flower shop, nothing more. There was nothing he took true joy in. 

"I used to surf," he said quietly. 

He felt Ken shift beside him, angling his body toward him. 

"You? You surf?" 

"And I played paintball." 

"Paintball?" Ken sounded absolutely shocked. Aya favored him with a bland stare. 

"Is it that amazing?" 

"Well, yeah! I mean, you of all people... I can't picture you on a surf board or nailing somebody in the ass with a paintball gun." 

"You always have had a way with words." 

"Eloquence is my middle name." 

"It is." 

Ken grinned. Aya glanced at him, not reflecting the smile, but gazing at him with silent regard. Ken had always had a cheerful smile. The same as he had an absolutely scathing scowl and his expressions of intense frustration or irritation. He had often seen the latter expression. No one infuriated Ken more than he did, and no one infuriated him more than Ken did. They were constantly pushing each other, seeing how far the other would go until something snapped, and their unspoken rivalry lead to violence. 

Ken took each step he did one stride longer, always made his arrangements one flower better, always took it a step further to be the better one. No, not better, Aya realized. To be equal. That was what he wanted. And to be equal to him, he had to take it to that further step. Otherwise he would always be tagging along behind, never able to catch up. 

"You said used to. What do you to now?" 

"Nothing," Aya answered quietly. 

"What do you do locked up in your room all day? It's gotta be something." 

"I read." 

"That's it?" 

"Usually." 

Ken sighed, exasperated. "I've got to get you out doing stuff." 

Aya said nothing. He was not sure whether or not he should be worried that Ken seemed to have suddenly made it his solemn duty to put some fun into his life. He supposed he should have been, probably. Ken was more than likely to force him to play soccer or come with him to his coaching lessons with the kids. Or he would make him watch corny movies. Whatever it was that Ken deemed fun he would be subjected to. But he wasn't worried. He was too surprised to be worried. Why would Ken even want to share that with him? 

"Like what?" he asked finally. 

"Lots of things," Ken said. "Ever played laser tag?" 

"... no." 

"Then we'll play laser tag. And uh... I don't know, do stuff. Or do you have a problem with that?" 

"With what, stuff?" 

Ken smiled slightly. "Yeah." 

"No," Aya said. "Not really." 

"Good." 

Sure, Aya thought. Good. Maybe. 

Ken shifted beside him. He felt a light pressure against his chest and shoulder. Ken was practically laying on top of him in his vain attempt to get comfortable in the cramped backseat. But he didn't yell. He didn't snap for him to stay still and deal with the restricting space. He simply let him. 

A head fell to rest against his shoulder. It was a careless touch. Ken did not realize the implications it held. And Aya certainly did not mean to make it more than it was. 

"You can teach me to surf," Ken murmured. For someone who claimed to not be tired, his voice betrayed him. 

"You want to surf?" 

"Yeah, sure. If I can drag you around to do things, you should be able to drag me around too. We'll go surfing." 

"And play paintball?" 

"Only if you let me hit you a couple of times so I can feel good about myself." 

Aya smiled faintly. "I'll let you win." 

"Just pretend to be really surprised that you lost." 

"Of course." 

Ken yawned, long and loud. His eyes flicked to him, briefly. He was not surprised that he was tired. The day had been long for Ken as well. But unlike him, Ken had the added weight of being the one that had delivered the killing blow to their target. 

He was able to smile in his cheerful way, talk in his careless ways as he always did, but Aya knew that it was his mask. It was the farce he wore to hide what was the truth, what he did feel after their missions, when he had killed someone. It was his coping mechanism. 

He closed away from the world, and Ken faced it with his masks, pretending that he was not breaking inside. 

"Are you warmer?" 

Aya looked down at him, unconsciously turning his head toward him. His nose and mouth brushed against dark strands of brown. He breathed in, smelling the faint scent of some nameless odor. 

"... aa," he murmured softly. "I'm warm." 

There were always worse things in the world than being alone with Ken. 


	2. A Game of Paintball

**Author's Notes:** Updated due to popular demand. ^^ Here is the next part. There will be three more. I hope you enjoy! 

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**Part Two**  
_A Game of Paintball_

"Rise and shine, boys!" 

Ken heard the sound of knuckles being rapped against the window before he heard the cheerful voice call out to wake up. He opened his eyes, squinting against the sudden burst of light that assaulted him. He must have overslept again. Youji had come to wake him up to yell at him for not being in the shop on time, but nevertheless, it was an offense he could find it in his immense heart to forgive. After all, the fewer boys around, the more girls that flocked to Youji, and that made him happier than a toddler with their grubby hand in a cookie jar. 

But something seemed odd. He was not in his bed, he realized. He was resting against something comfortable, soft and warm against his back, but it was not the comfort of his own mattress. Rubbing his eyes in an attempt to clear away early morning blur, he glanced around at his surroundings. The tiny, cramped space he was stuffed into was more certainly not the familiar comfort of his bed. He was in the backseat of a car, wrapped up in a disheveled old blanket, and staring blankly out the window into the grinning face of Kudou Youji. 

And the warm, soft thing he was against was Fujimiya Aya. 

He stared at him, wide-eyed, mouth open as though about to speak, but not even a single squeak would come. Aya looked back down at him, one crimson eyebrow arched delicately. He had perfected that look of pure and utter blandness. No, he had not perfected. He had _become_ the incarnation of bland. 

"Sleep well?" he asked in a voice that held no humor, but Ken knew was somehow, in some twisted way, teasing. He instantly ruffled. It was his second nature to be defensive from the get-go. That way, it saved him -- most of the time -- from looking like a complete and utter idiot. 

"No, you're bony as hell," he muttered. He pushed away from Aya, fumbling through the folds of blanket surrounding them for the handle of the back door. He did not even give a chance for Youji to back out of the way. Instead he kicked out with his legs, quickly and violently, and the other man was nearly barreled to the ground as the door crashed into his knees. 

"Geez, Kenken! Watch it!" Youji leaned down to rub at his knees, acting as though he were some poor, wounded veteran of war that needed tender care. Of course, he would refuse any care unless it was in the form of three or four pretty nurses. Regardless of the pain, he still found it in him to flash them both his knowing, amused grin. 

"Did you two have fun out here all alone?" He emphasized the words 'all alone.' It would not have taken a genius to know what he was illusioning to. 

"We had loads of fun," Ken said. He tried to glare, but the effect was lost when combined with the sudden and furious blush that appeared on his cheeks. 

Aya slid out of the car behind him. The trench coat he had worn the night before was rumbled and looking in desperate need of an ironing. Ken glanced down at his own clothes and found them in the same state of disarray. Laundry loads for them when they got home. 

"Youji-kun said we were gonna find you incased in ice." A head poked up from behind the propped up hood of the car. Omi was grease-stained but smiling. His hair was pushed back from his eyes with the backwards baseball cap he wore, but a few strands of blonde peeked through. He let out a breath of air, blowing them out of his line of vision. 

"We're fine," Aya intoned quietly. He folded his arms. "Would have been better if someone had realized we were stuck earlier." He directed his words at Youji. The other man held up his hands, in a gesture of surrender. 

"Hey, hey, hey," he said, "we knew you were gone, but by the time Omi and I got back to the shop, the snow was coming down too hard for us to head out again. We just figured you'd use your infinite resources as a world-class assassin to save both your butts." 

Ken watched the expression Aya wore change. He wanted to be irritated with them, but at the same time, he knew that Youji was right. They would have been needlessly endangered if they had come out as well. Ken knew it was better that they had stayed where they were. He and Aya had survived the night, after all. No harm done. 

Aya moved away from Youji to stand beside Omi at the hood of the car. "What's wrong with it?" 

"Your battery is dead," Omi said. Ken almost smiled. He had said the same exact thing the night before. 

"But don't worry," the youngest member of Weiss continued, "I jump-started it with Youji's car. It should run fine, at least until we get back to Tokyo. Then you can take it to the shop." 

"Our little Omi is a real whiz when it comes to cars, turns out," Youji interjected. He reached over and removed the cap Omi wore, plunking it down on his own head, and using Omi's vulnerable state as an opportunity to ruffle his hair affectionately. "He could probably fix it on his own." 

Omi tried to bat away his hands without success. "No way, I don't know that much... you better take it to the shop, Aya-kun, just to be careful." 

Aya nodded. "Sure. I will." 

"Then can we get a move on?" Youji asked. "We had to close down the shop to come and get you guys, and let me tell you, those girls weren't a bit pleased." 

"Let's go," Aya said. He slid into the front seat of his car. It started on the first turn to the ignition. Ken could see him through the window give a visible sigh of relief, his eyes closing briefly as he exhaled. The last thing he needed was for his damned car to break down again on the way home. 

"I'll go with Aya-kun," Omi volunteered. "In case the car decides to act up." 

Ken felt an arm drape around his shoulders. "Then that leaves you with me, Kenken," Youji said. He looked up to see the older man grinning down at him. Joy of joys. 

He watched Omi sit down in the passenger seat beside Aya. That seat had been his just hours ago. He wondered why it bothered him to see Omi there. It was not that he was jealous. He knew it was nothing like that. Couldn't be something like that. But it still bothered him for some reason. It gnawed at him, even as they drove away, and he and Youji pulled out behind them to follow them home. 

He leaned his arm against the car door, leaning his weight against it. Wind rushed over him, biting at his cheeks. Youji, of course, would have decided he wanted a car that he never kept the top on of, and one he always insisted to drive at speeds that defied the laws of not only the country but gravity. His hair whipped around his face, lashing at his cheeks. It was getting too long again. But he thought he would leave it that way. He hated having to go on a monthly basis to the barber. It was too much of a pain. 

The car slowed as they entered more populated areas nearer to Tokyo. Even Youji was forced to obey the law sometimes. Ken was not grateful for the lessening of speed. Less speed, less wind, which meant that he and Youji would be able to talk without the roar of the engine and the rush of wind drowning them out. And he wasn't too sure he really wanted to hear what Youji had to say. 

He waited, glancing at the other man from the corner of his eye. It would be coming, sooner or later. Some teasing comment. Some quip dripping of innuendo. Youji always teased him, but recently it had turned to more personal things. He always had something to say about everything Ken did, and most of the time, it had something to do with Aya. 

"Well?" he asked finally. 

Youji looked at him, briefly. "Well, what?" 

"Aren't you going to say something?" 

"What about?" Youji asked. He reached into the inside pocket of the denim jacket he wore and removed a packet of cigarettes. He held it out to Ken. "Get me out one of those, will you?" 

Ken took the pack from him and tapped it effortlessly against the palm of his hand. He removed the first cigarette that dislodged from the others and held it out to Youji. The older man put it to his lips, and still concentrating on the road and balancing the wheel with his knees, lit it up. 

"I haven't got anything to say," he said. 

"That's a first," Ken murmured. 

"Why, you want to hear something in particular? A lecture?" 

Ken glanced at him, a smile tugging at his lips. "Yeah, what've you got for me today?" 

"Well, I've got the good ol' give it the college try. Or we could just go with what happens when you get attracted to your friends." 

Ken bristled. "I'm not attracted to Aya!" 

"Oh, is it Aya? I thought it was Omi." Youji grinned at him. He knew exactly what he meant, and Ken knew it too. He was jerking his chain just to get a rise out of him. And unfortunately, it was working. 

Ken folded his arms. "Fine. So I am. Beats the hell out of me why, but I am." 

"We can't control who we're attracted to, Kenken." 

"No kidding..." 

He fisted a hand against his cheek, staring out at the buildings they passed without seeing anything. He had known that he was attracted to Aya for weeks, months even, but why was the one thing he had yet to figure out. It wasn't even like Aya was a likeable person. He was rude and reclusive, stubborn and headstrong, and a complete jerk when he wanted to be. So what was it about him? 

"Do you think it's weird?" 

"What?" Youji looked at him, surprised. 

"That I'm attracted to Aya," Ken said. "Is it weird?" 

Youji was silent a moment. "That's a hard question. Do I think it's weird you like him? Yeah, sure I do. I mean, it's fricking Aya we're talking about here." He paused. "Or are you asking the moral dilemma of whether or not I think it's weird you like a guy?" 

Ken found he couldn't meet his eyes. "I guess it's a little of both," he admitted. 

"Somebody once said love transcends gender. That's what I think." 

"So it's not weird?" 

Youji glanced at him, only for a brief second, and smiled. "It's not weird." 

Aya and Omi turned at a crossroad while Youji continued forward in his own car. The former two intended to go to the auto shop down the street and a few blocks away, only a brief walking distance from the flower shop. Ken was grateful to lose sight of them. He and Youji would be back at the flower store before they were done at the auto place, which would give him plenty of time to shower, change, and get downstairs to work. Which meant plenty of time he had that would not be filled with seeing Aya or being forced to think about the night before or his attraction to the other man. 

"I'll brave the girls alone, I suppose," Youji said. He sighed dramatically as he slammed shut the driver's side door. "It'll be torture." 

"If I hear you scream, I'll come save you," Ken promised, grinning. 

Youji flashed him one of his smiles that spoke far more than his words. "Just make sure you know what _kind_ of scream it is." 

"Youji, you're disgusting." 

"Guilty as charged." 

Shaking his head, Ken carelessly pressed the button to lower the garage door as he opened another into the comfort of the basement of their apartment. The screen that Persia appeared on to give them missions sat silently against the far wall. No, not Persia. Just a generated image of him. Ken stared at it thoughtfully for a moment. Hard to think that they were closing in almost six months since the death of their mentor and guardian. And depressing. 

He shrugged. Some things couldn't be changed. 

He trotted up the steps two at a time. Through the thin material of the walls, he could hear Youji in the shop. The older man was blabbering about one thing or another. He paused, listening. It was another of his flower stories, he realized. Youji liked to tease the girls by going through dramatics of how there was always one flower that suited just one person. He would finish by presenting whatever girl he was charming at the time with the flower he deemed worthy of her, free of charge. Aya was always yelling at him for that... 

Up another flight of stairs and he was on the apartment floor that he and Aya shared. Youji and Omi were one floor above them, completing the small three-story building. He wandered down the hall and into the bathroom at the far end, kicking off his shoes as he went. He should have left them outside in the garage, but not thinking, had gone inside still wearing them. 

He stripped out of his rumpled clothes in front of the mirror. As he pulled the shirt over his head, he noticed something on his skin, marring already marred flesh -- burn scars from when Kase had tried to have him killed. But this was fresh. He touched the mark gingerly. 

Blood, he realized. Dried blood. It had seeped through his shirt and stained his skin. 

"Shit." He murmured the curse below his breath. 

He had killed the target from the night before. Aya had offered. Aya had told him to go ahead, to clear an escape route, but he hadn't listened to him. Only said that he could do it and that he would do it. Ken frowned at his reflection. The expression Aya had worn in that moment was unreadable then, but he realized now what it was. Apprehension. Concern. Aya had not wanted him to kill the target. 

He stripped out of the rest of his clothes and leaned over the tub to turn on the shower. Aya was trying to protect him. But there was nothing endearing about that. It was frustrating. Aya didn't trust him to do it. Aya didn't think him capable to do it. After so long of working together, Aya still thought he wasn't good enough. 

He would show him different. Even if it killed him to try, he would show Aya that he wasn't worthless, that he was as strong as he was. 

Youji barely glanced at him as he came into the shop through the back door, still struggling to tie his apron around his waist. His hair was damp from the brief shower, but he was clean, dressed in fresh clothes that did not reek of blood, and that was all he wanted. 

Omi was in the shop as well, sitting at the counter and ringing up the charge for an overzealous girl, loaded down with more flowers than were humanly necessary. But Aya... 

"Where's Aya?" A girl voiced his own question before he had the chance. 

"He's off today," Youji said, swooping over in a movement that reminded Ken of a vulture sweeping in on a carcass. Which was really an awful analogy and almost made him feel sick to his stomach. "But I could help you," Youji continued, smiling brightly at his newest girl to charm. 

Ken tuned them out. Youji was dealing with customers and Omi was manning the register, which meant he had the supreme joy of doing any of the arrangements that were requested of them. He plopped down on a stool, reaching over for a rose from a vase full of them. Stripping the thorns came before anything else. He hated stripping thorns. He always managed to cut himself somehow, and by the end of the day, all of his fingers were wrapped up in band-aids. 

He barely heard Youji flirting with the girls or Omi sputtering when they teased him mercilessly. Their voices faded out and he concentrated only on what he was doing. He only broke from the daze when a girl would come over to him, and smiling at him, batting their eyes, would ask him to make them arrangement. And he would smile back with his plastered on Nice Face and do whatever ridiculous thing they asked from him. 

One wanted some hideous thing that was more puce than it was maroon with orange lilies. Orange and _puce_. 

He watched as people came in and out, but did not really see them. His mind was somewhere else. And when his mind was somewhere else, he slashed up his fingers on rose thorns. 

"Dammit," he hissed beneath his breath. Another slash to his thumb. He stuck it in his mouth, sucking on the wound. Just great. 

He was standing to go search for a band-aid when he suddenly felt something being pressed into the small of his back. The muzzle of a rifle. He could tell by the way it felt, digging into his spine. Not a sniper rifle. More like a hunting rifle. 

How the hell had someone gotten a hunting rifle into the shop without anyone else noticing? 

He started to turn, taking his movements with painful, deliberate care. The urge to clench his eyes shut was almost overbearing. If his guts were going to be splattered all over the floor and the wall behind him, he did not think he wanted to see it as it happened. 

One eye was squinted shut as he turned to face his attacker. Both flew open when he saw who it was. 

"Aya?" 

Aya had a rifle tucked under one arm, another held in his gloved fist. The expression on his face was a mixture of bland and amusement. Ken could feel himself turning red. He had thought it was a real gun. He had almost convinced himself that someone was standing behind him, ready to pull the trigger at any moment, and paint the room with his insides. And all it had turned out to be was Aya, carrying in his hands two paintball guns. 

"You said you wanted to play," the older man said simply. He held out the rifle in his left hand to him. Ken stared at him. 

"But I'm working--" 

"Don't worry about it!" Youji interrupted. He was grinning nearly from ear to ear. "Omi and I can handle things around here. It hasn't been busy." 

"Yeah, go," Omi piped in. "Just be careful. Those paintball things hurt." 

Ken stared alternately between the rifle and Aya. He hadn't thought for a moment that when he had asked Aya to take him the night before, in a sleep-starved induced stupor, that the older man would have taken him seriously. He wasn't even sure if he had meant what he said about wanting to go. Guns were not his specialty. 

"You still want to go?" Aya asked. There was a hint of impatience in his voice. 

Ken slowly took the gun from him. "I guess." 

"Go easy on him, Aya," Youji called. "He's just a baby." 

Ken flashed him a look of pure and utter loathing. 

He wanted to ask how they would get to wherever it was people played paintball, but he doubted that Aya would even offer him a second glance. He followed along obediently and silently, asking no questions that would receive no answers. 

Aya must have asked Youji to let him borrow his car, because it was to the garage that Aya was leading him. He almost wanted to suggest that they go on his motorcycle instead, but he had a feeling Aya wouldn't have liked that idea much. Having to sit on the back of the bike while balancing two rifles would not have only been a blow to his ego, but might get them some unwanted attention from the police. They would have looked like crazed gunmen riding his bike down the highway. 

He sat down in the passenger side for the second time in the day, his arm resting along the top of the car. Aya opened up the garage door before joining him. He was tempted to ask if he could drive. It wasn't every day Youji let someone else touch his baby. Then again, it wasn't every day that Youji would pass up an opportunity to see Ken mortifyingly embarrassed. 

He twisted the band-aid around the tip of his index finger. Aya rarely spoke when he was driving. Not that it was an often occurrence that he spoke at all, but when he was driving, he always seemed to be further and further away. Driving with him to missions or riding back with him from them, Ken had become used to the intense silence. But something was uncomfortable about it now. Maybe because it wasn't a mission they were going to. They were doing something normal, natural for people their age. 

Or he thought it was normal, anyway. He had never played paintball before. For all he knew, all of the people that played could have been disgustingly calm maniacs like Aya was. 

Ken did not look up throughout the drive, not until he felt the car come to a sudden, abrupt stop. He sat up them, using his hands to push himself up from his slumped down position. His eyes wandered over the area. 

It reminded him of an arena. There was one single building standing to their left, a few other cars parked around them, but most of what it was, was a hollowed out dirt pit. Obstacles and obstructions dotted the field, from broken down cars that looked like they had seen far better days, to a row of tires blocking out one area from another, and towers built of old, cracking wood. It looked like a junkyard, Ken realized. Just a very well organized one. 

Aya handed him his gun. "Here." He started to walk away, not bothering to wait for him. Ken stumbled out of the car and trotted to catch up with the older man. 

"Hey, are you going to explain this to me or what?" he demanded. "Even if it is just paint, I don't want to go out there and just be target practice for you." 

He was almost certain Aya smirked at that. 

"Since you're just a beginner I'll make it easy for you." He walked out into the field, glancing around at his surroundings. "I already called ahead. We have the place to ourselves." 

Ken was not sure whether or not he should be nervous. On the one hand, he did not have to worry about other people taking shots out of the dark at him. But at the same time, that meant Aya would have his attention focused only and completely on him. 

"So just one on one?" he asked. 

"One on one," Aya replied. Ken knew for a fact that he was smirking now. He almost wanted to punch him. 

"One hit and it's over?" 

"We'll play easy. Three hits, then it's over." 

Ken made a face. "Don't go easy on me just because I'm a beginner." 

Aya smiled in a way that made him feel inexplicably nervous. "I won't," he promised. 

"Yeah, right." Ken muttered the words beneath his breath. Aya did not hear him or did not deem it necessary to respond to. He was already walking away from him, getting a better grasp of his surroundings. Ken followed a few paces behind him. 

Aya stopped suddenly and turned to face him. "Ready?" 

"Hell no." 

"Too bad." 

The muzzle of Aya's gun was aimed on him before he had the chance to react. He saw Aya beginning to pull back the trigger, and out of blind instinct, he instantly rolled out of the way, tucking his own gun in close to his body. A splatter of yellow paint struck the ground behind him. He felt a droplet fly up and strike his cheek. 

"Don't waste any time, do you?" he hissed between clenched teeth. He jumped to his feet and ran for the nearest cover. Aya did not waste any more rounds on him, instead moving to his own shelter. 

Resting the barrel of the gun against his shoulder and gripping it between both hands, back pressed against a disheveled piece of scrap metal, Ken spared a glance over his shoulder. He could not see Aya. He was there one moment and gone the next. But he knew better than to reveal himself too soon. Working with Aya for as long as he had, he had learned his stealth movements as though they were his own. He had a feeling it would be his only advantage on the field. 

His eyes caught a flicker of movement, and blindly, he whirled and aimed. A ball of red paint from his rifle struck nothing but dirt. But he could see Aya moving slowly and carefully along, like a man without a care in the world. Suddenly he wanted to beat him even more than before. Anything to get rid of that smugness Aya had about him. 

He crept from his hiding place. The gun fired before he saw it or its owner. A round of yellow paint struck him full in the chest, the impact nearly barreling him over. Omi was right. The paintball things did hurt. 

"That's gonna bruise..." He murmured the words. 

He moved again to hide behind the twisted piece of metal. Experience as an assassin should have told him it was stupid to move out when he had. If their mock fighting were real, he would have known better than to reveal himself so early in the game. But no one had ever said he was the brightest crayon in the box. He learned through trial and error. He was just lucky it had yet to get him killed. 

He inclined his head slightly, listening to see if Aya would make a sound. Not that he would. Aya always moved silently, even when he did not mean to. Ken could remember more times than he liked to admit to in the flower shop that Aya had scared the crap out of him just by walking up to him from behind. He didn't know he was there until he spoke, and then the next thing he knew, he was jumping out of his skin and trying to restrain a pathetic yelp. 

Without sound to warn him of where Aya was or whether or not he was approaching, he knew he was a sitting duck. And while sitting around had its perks, taking a chance to move was a better option. That way he could at least gain a better grasp of his surroundings, perhaps even see Aya and take a shot at him. Maybe he could get in a few hits of his own before Aya slaughtered him. 

He moved slowly, holding the rifle close and with his finger posed on the trigger. His eyes scanned the area. There he was. He could see his shadow. Aya was knelt down on one knee behind the broken down car; he could tell by the outline of his shadow. Smiling slightly to himself, Ken began to creep along, intensely aware of his own movements. If he made even the slightest sound, Aya would be up and shooting him before he could even start to pull back his own trigger. 

He walked around the back of the car. Aya could not see him; he was facing away from him, aiming for where he had been before. Ken glanced around the trunk of the car. It was a clean shot. Aya would have no idea where it had come from. 

The red paint exploded against his back, staining the white jacket he wore crimson. Aya whirled around on him. Ken grinned. 

"You should always watch your back." 

Aya rolled his eyes. "One shot and you're suddenly a genius." 

"I _am_ a genius," Ken declared. "I'm not the one covered in paint, now am I?" 

"Are you?" Aya raised an eyebrow, gaze falling deliberately to the yellow splotch of paint on his chest. Ken glared at him. 

"Yeah, well, at least I didn't get shot in the back." 

Aya raised his rifle. "We can change that." 

Ken ducked. The shot sailed over his head. Leaping to his feet, he ran around the side of the car, but it was already too late. Aya fired again. He felt the paintball explode against his back. 

"Ow, shit! Those things hurt that close up!" 

"Idiot." Aya was without sympathy. Not that he had expected any. 

"Shut up." 

Ken lifted his rifle and fired blindly, another close range attack. He did not see where it struck, only Aya go down on one knee. 

"What's wrong with you?" he asked. "It can't have hurt as much as you did me." 

Aya did not respond. Frowning slightly, Ken backed away from the car separating them. "What did I hit?" 

"My knee," Aya answered. "I blew it out when I was a kid." His voice was strained. 

"Oh, crap." 

Ken moved around the back of the car. Aya was knelt down, a hand to his knee. Red paint stained through his hand, as well as his jeans. It looked almost like blood, Ken thought somewhere in the back of his mind. It was too bright to be blood, but the way it struck and the way it dripped down his leg, it almost looked like a real gunshot wound. 

"I didn't know you had a bad knee." He knelt down beside the older man. 

"I don't have a bad knee," Aya said, his tone somewhat defensive. "I just got hurt. Sometimes it can start to act up again." 

Ken ignored the defensive act. "I guess that close of impact hit it pretty bad." 

"Yeah." 

"Sorry." Ken didn't know why he was apologizing. It wasn't as though he could have known. "You should've mentioned it and I wouldn't have aimed there." 

"You weren't aiming there to begin with," Aya said pointedly. 

"Oh. Yeah. There is that." Ken laughed sheepishly. 

Aya bowed his head. Ken opened his mouth to suggest that they take a break, but did not have the chance to speak. Aya interrupted him. 

"Ken, do you know what the first rule of fighting is?" 

He stared down at the bowed crimson head. "No. What's the first rule?" 

It happened too quickly for him to have a chance to react. For one brief second, Aya was looking at him, eyes staring into his own, searching him for a sign of something -- anything. And then as quick as the moment it had come it was over. He felt a round strike him full in the chest, and not prepared for the abrupt attack, he fell flat on his back, his breathing coming low and shallow. Aya loomed above him. 

"Know your enemy," he said. He was smiling. 

Ken stared up at him. 

"You... you asshole! You tricked me!" 

"Yes." 

"You cheated!" 

"There aren't any rules in this game." 

Ken struggled to sit up and glare at Aya at the same time. "You're still an asshole." 

A hand extended to him. He glared at it for a moment. Maybe if he stared hard enough, his hand would catch on fire and melt away. That would have been divine retribution. 

Sighing, he accepted the outstretched hand. No such luck. 

"What made you so sure I'd fall for it?" 

"Because I know you," Aya said simply. "You're a bleeding heart." 

"I--I am not." 

"Yes, you are." 

Ken bit his tongue to keep from bursting out, 'Am not!' He did not think Aya would have much respect for him if he engaged in such a juvenile argument. 

"You said you would let me win," he said instead. 

"Next time." 

Ken felt his mouth curve into a smile. Next time, huh. So there _would_ be a next time. He would beat him then. Aya would not win again. Not if he could do anything to stop him. 

"Next time, then. I'll beat you next time." 

Aya smiled. "Next time." 


	3. Soccer

**Author's Notes:** Some notes on the last chapter -- I know absolutely nothing about paintball. ^^ Some people have noted some things for me, and I'll go through and revise someday. Someday being the key word there. 

Sorry about the cliffhanger type ending. ^_^ Don't worry, it's all in the next chapter. 

--------

**Part Three**  
_Soccer_

There was no better feeling than waking up in the morning with fresh bruises. Standing before the mirror in the bathroom, Aya touched the small of his back, gently probing the area with the tips of his fingers. He sucked in a sharp breath of air as he applied too much pressure and a fresh wave of pain swept over him. He had not played paintball in so long, he had nearly forgotten how badly the paint pellets bruised him. His only comfort was knowing that Ken would be hurting as much as he was. 

Another fresh bruise stood out on his knee, but that was easy for him to disregard. There was a better chance that he would do something to make the other hurt more throughout the day than the one on his knee. Even something as simple as a casual touch was going to hurt. But it was the price that came with playing paintball. He had learned that when he was a kid and his dad had taken him for his first game. He had come home without an inch of his body not covered with a bruise. His mother had thought for certain he was going to die. 

He stepped out of the bathroom into the hall. Ken was not on schedule for the day and was using it as an opportunity to sleep the morning away. Aya did not make an effort to keep from disturbing his rest as he walked down the hall to his own room. Ken had woken him up more times than he could remember in such hideous hours of the morning as ten and eleven, kicking his soccer ball down the hall, yelling at Omi for something or another, or arguing with Youji. Aya took it as a personal insult and never made an effort to show him any more kindness than the younger man gave him. 

It was tempting to do something obnoxious as he passed the closed door. Maybe pound against the wall yelling, 'Fire!' Then again, maybe that was too juvenile. He was supposed to be the older one, after all. But it was tempting all the same. 

He closed the door behind him as he walked into his room. The door slammed, but it was an honest mistake. Anyone could have slammed it without meaning to. 

It was too early in the morning for Youji and Omi to be awake yet. He would have to open the store alone. Ordinarily, he did not mind opening and closing the shop by himself. But lately the girls that came were becoming far more persistent. Almost half of the time, when he went downstairs, they were already there waiting for them, dressed in their freshly pressed school uniforms. Just a trip to the flower shop before a day at school. What they did with the flowers, he had no idea. Probably pitched them into the garbage as they walked down the street. They weren't really there for the merchandise, after all. Not that kind of merchandise, anyway. 

He dressed in black jeans and an equally dark t-shirt. No one had ever said he was the picture of happiness and light. Besides, he liked black. Youji said wearing it made him look like he was a corpse, but then Youji's opinion had never meant anything to him. 

He slammed the door again as he left the room. Glancing down the hall, he saw that Ken had abandoned one of his many soccer balls there again. He always left his things lying around, as though the entire floor was his to litter. He seemed to forget that he had to share it with another person. 

Aya kicked the ball back down the hall as hard as he could. It struck the closed bedroom door leading to Ken's inner sanctum with what sounded more like a nuclear bomb being detonated than a ball hitting the wall. Aya waited a moment, counting under his breath. On three, the bedroom door was flung open by a disgruntled Ken, his hair sticking up in all directions. He looked like he had stuck his finger in an electric socket. 

"Don't leave your stuff lying around." 

Ken stared at him. He tried to work his mouth to fumble out words. "Y... you just woke me up for _that_?" 

Aya folded his arms. "I've told you a million times not to leave your crap out here." 

"And I've told _you_ a million times not to wake me up on my day off! We don't always get what we want." Ken slammed the door. Aya could hear him cursing even from where he stood at the end of the hall and smiled. Retribution always was a painful thing. 

He took the steps downstairs two at a time. Unlike Ken, he gave Youji and Omi the common courtesy of being quiet as he trooped along to the shop on the first floor. He did it more for Omi than he did for Youji. Youji had kept him from sleep almost as often as Ken did, but in far more obnoxious ways. 

The shop smelled of what made him think of stale perfume, as it always did, when he stepped inside. It was not a potent scent, but it was still there, lingering in the air. He had never enjoyed the smell. Youji had dozens of romantic ways to describe how lovely was the smell of a flower, but he honestly thought it was all a load of bull. Flowers smelled like plants, nothing else. They were just there. 

He turned on the lights. The girls had yet to show up. Good. It gave him time to prepare for the onslaught. 

He was opening the metal sliding security door when Omi appeared. His hair was sleep tousled and his clothing rumpled, but he looked far more alert and in tune with the world than Ken or Youji ever did when they woke up in the morning. Those two were only alert in a lack of sleep induced stupor if it were a life or death situation. And that happened so rarely, they had likely forgotten what it meant to wake up before the sun was shining. 

"'morning," Omi said, running a hand through his hair and yawning the words. 

"'morning," Aya replied. He pushed up the door the rest of the way. The sun was just barely coming up. By the time it was full in the sky, the shop would be swarming with high school and middle school girls alike. 

"Youji-kun and Ken-kun are still asleep?" Omi asked. 

"Ken might not be," Aya answered. He tried not to smile. It really was juvenile to take pleasure in knowing he had robbed the younger man of sleep, but still. Ken had done the same to him. Revenge felt good. 

Omi sat down at the counter, folding his arms on its top and resting his head on them. "I didn't ever think you'd be the paintball type of person," he said. 

Aya glanced at him over his shoulder from where he stood, sweeping up discarded stems and flower petals that littered the floor. "There are a lot of things you don't know about me," he replied, simply. 

"You don't want us to know?" 

Aya shrugged. 

Omi sat up, putting his elbows to the counter and resting his chin in his hands. "You don't trust anyone, do you, Aya-kun?" 

It was a strange question for him to ask. Aya looked at him for a moment, puzzled. Omi rarely came out and said things as blatantly as he was. He was too polite of a person to do that. Even if he wanted to know, he would always stay away from the subject unless he knew it was safe to talk about it. He was always careful, never wanting to step on anyone's toes, never wanting to hurt anyone somehow. 

"I try not to," Aya answered slowly. 

"I trust you," Omi said. "And Ken-kun and Youji-kun too." He yawned, mouth opening wide and eyes closing. "Because we're all friends, right?" 

Aya glanced down at the broom in his hands. "Sure." Maybe. 

Youji joined them then, looking far worse than Omi did. He collapsed at the counter beside the younger man and promptly began to snore. 

The morning rush of teenage girls was the only thing that woke him. Omi tried a few times to shake him awake to no avail. Youji could sleep through a hurricane, tsunami, and earthquake all at the same time if he wanted to. He did not intend to wake up until he was damn well and ready. 

He did sneak away when Aya and Omi were not paying attention to him, distracted by cleaning up the shop and preparing for customers. When he returned, he looked far better, dressed in fresh clothes and looking as though he had splashed his face with cold water. His hair was still a mass of tangles and kinks, but nothing a brush through with his fingers wouldn't clear up. 

Aya let he and Omi deal with the customers. He could not tolerate high school girls even on a good day. In the dead of morning, when he would have much rather been asleep, it was worse. 

High school girls were like the spawn of Satan, he had decided. Individually, they were tolerable. He had even had somewhat of intelligent conversations with Sakura. But the moment they were in groups of more than two, it was as though they were possessed by some squealing, dramatic, fan-girling beast that he hoped to never meet. He doubted that death would be quick and painless when faced with such a creature. 

"Hey, Aya, are you with us?" He blinked up from his daze and saw Youji looking at him, a hand pressed to his hip. Thinking about the fan-girl beast, he had tuned out the rest of the world. It wasn't like anything Youji had to say was more interesting than his newfound bedtime monster. 

"Sure." 

"Then maybe you can do the register like you're supposed to." 

He blinked. Looking down the counter, he found the line to the register had built up almost ten people deep. Well, so much for day-dreaming the day away. 

He was relieved when the morning rush finally began to break up and disappear. He was more tired than he thought. His mind kept drifting elsewhere, to the most absurd of things. It was not even noon when he began to wonder why in the hell it was a flower shop that had been chosen to be their cover. They could have done anything else. He would have even been happy in a candy shop. But no, it had to be flowers. 

"Aya-kun?" 

He glanced up. "Yeah?" 

Omi was slinging a back-pack over his shoulder. He had almost forgotten he had school to go to as well. He just always made a point of being up in the morning to help them with the rush of girls that always came. Then he went his own way. Aya almost sighed. That meant he would have to spend all day alone with Youji. 

"Are you okay? You seem really out of it." 

"I think I am," Aya agreed. 

"If you don't feel good, you should go lie down for awhile. Youji-kun will be all right on his own for a few hours." 

"I'll think about it." 

Omi smiled. "Okay. See you." 

Aya lifted a hand and waved slightly to him. It was easy for him to forget that Omi was still only a kid. The innocence of youth when it came to Omi had blurred for him a long time ago. It was hard to look at someone that he had seen kill with his own eyes and be able to see him as anything like an innocent teenager, going to school, hanging out with friends, doing anything a person his age ordinarily would do. It was too easy to forget. 

The older customers came in during the school day to avoid the throngs of high school girls the shop was all too often overrun with. Aya was grateful for them. For one, they were not hordes of squealing girls. And for another, they made his day pass more quickly, offering meaningless distraction as the hours wore on. 

It was not until two in the afternoon that Ken made his first appearance since Aya had abruptly awoken him that morning. Aya glanced up at him, briefly. He was dressed in a pair of jeans that looked as though they had seen better days. Two holes in the knees showed skin, and another at the hip revealed the color of his boxers, something he had either overlooked or didn't seem to be feeling modest about. The t-shirt was white, and thankfully, in better shape than the jeans. He had a netted bag slung over his shoulder, in it a few spare soccer balls. 

He glared. Aya ignored him. 

"What, you two suddenly hate each other again?" Youji was leaning back in a chair, opposite of the counter where Aya sat. He had his legs kicked up and a newspaper spread open in his lap. Whether or not he was actually reading it for the news factor or the funnies page Aya had yet to see. 

"Someone thinks it's funny to wake me up at the crack of dawn," Ken said. He folded his arms. 

"Someone else is always waking me up _before_ the crack of dawn," Aya returned. 

Youji rolled his eyes. 

"I've got to get to practice," Ken announced. 

Aya said nothing. He did not have to. Youji said it for him, whether or not he wanted him to say it at all. 

"Take Aya with you." 

"What?" Ken stared at him. 

Youji did not even look up from his newspaper. "He's been grumpy today. Take him with you. Maybe the kiddies will cheer him up." 

"_He_ can hear you," Aya interjected dryly. 

"I doubt he even wants to go," Ken replied. Aya sighed. Fine. He would just sit and listen to them argue about him. 

"Have you asked him?" Youji said peaceably. 

Ken opened his mouth to argue, but apparently lacking a decent rebuttal, he turned to face Aya. Aya folded his arms and waited. 

"Do you want to go to practice with me?" Ken asked. His voice said quite clearly that one, he did not expect that Aya would say yes, and for another, he was only asking because Youji had nettled him. Aya smiled faintly, in such a way it seemed more a smirk than a smile. 

"Sure." 

Ken stared at him. "What? Sure? What do you mean, 'sure'?" 

"I mean sure, I'll go." 

"Now, see?" Youji interjected. He smiled. "That wasn't so hard." 

"But..." Ken opened his mouth again to argue, and again coming up with nothing, promptly shut up. 

Aya stood. "Let's go." 

He waited to see whether or not Ken would try to argue his going along. Instead the younger man sighed faintly, and adjusting the weight of the bag slung over his shoulder, started forward. Aya followed at a safe distance. He had a feeling that if Ken decided to hit him with those soccer balls, it would not tickle very little. 

Ken kept a few paces ahead of him as they walked along. Aya did not mind. He knew that the younger man was not angry that he had decided to join him. Just bewildered. Honestly, he had only wanted to see what Ken's reaction would be if he said yes. Now he had it and though he knew it was rude and juvenile to be amused, he could not keep from smiling. 

He hoped the small amusement was worth it. He hated soccer. And being around little kids tended to make him nervous. 

Well, if the amusement did not last, the fact that school was just then letting out for the afternoon and he would not have to deal with the hordes of teenage girls would. 

The team that Ken coached for, from what Aya understood of the way he babbled about it occasionally, was not school-sponsored, and Ken volunteered to coach. He was never paid for his efforts. Aya supposed with what he made as Weiss and at the flower shop, it was unnecessary to have anything else. 

The team met for practices at a park a few blocks from the flower shop. Aya followed Ken, hands in his pockets. He glanced ahead. It looked like most of the kids were already there waiting for either him or the other kids to show up. A few scattered groups of parents spoke together as their children played amongst themselves or kicked around a battered old soccer ball. 

A pig-tailed girl spotted Ken. She tugged on the arm of another boy her age. Word seemed to spread quickly. Before they had even reached the field, Ken was swarmed down by the kids. He laughed. 

"Hey, hey, careful, you're gonna bowl me over." He put his hands to his hips. "Were you guys practicing those drills I taught you last time?" 

There was a scattered response, some chorus of no and one high and indignant yes. Ken tried to look stern, but Aya could see his expression softening. 

"You know if you want to beat those guys this weekend you've got to work harder," he said. 

"We will," a boy piped up. 

"Really, we will," another added. "We're sorry." 

Ken grinned. "It's all right." 

A girl tugged on his jeans. "Ken-ni, who's this?" She pointed up to Aya. Aya looked at Ken. 

"This?" Ken repeated. He chewed his lower lip. "This is Aya," he said finally. "He's a friend of mine. He came to watch." He straightened up, all at once becoming the stern coach once again. "Go do those drills I told you about. I'll be over in a sec." 

The kids dispersed, running off to do as he told them. Aya slipped his hands from his pockets. 

"You have little things attached to you." 

Ken glanced at him. "Yeah, they're called kids," he said, grinning. "They're smaller versions of adults." 

Aya rolled his eyes. "Yeah. I got that." 

"I've gotta get to them." 

"Go ahead." 

He watched Ken run out to the field to join the kids. Returning his hands to his pockets, he turned and walked toward a nearby tree. He dropped down and leaned his back against the trunk. It was not the most comfortable of places and did not provide much in the way of relaxation, but he could see the entire field and still hear the distant voices of the kids and Ken calling orders to them. 

He had never been very good with kids. Even his own sister had made him uncomfortable when she was just a child. But Ken seemed to be completely at ease with them. He had a natural way with them that some were possessed with and others not. It was not a virtue Aya had been given, and not one he regretted not having at all. 

Pulling up his legs, he folded his arms over his knees and rested his chin on them, watching. Ken stood in the center of the field, calling out directions or reprimands when the kids got too rough in their playing. He kept his tone light-hearted. Aya had a feeling, being the person he was, Ken would have done anything to prevent even slightly hurting the feelings of any of the kids. He was equal with all of them, never too harsh on one or too easy on another. Kids were able to see such qualities in a person better than an adult would. It was only natural they were as attracted to Ken as they were. 

He frowned slightly. He could remember a time when Ken would leave the shop on his off days not to go train kids in soccer, but to play. There was never a team he could find to be on, but he was happy enough if he was able to find two or three people at the park that were willing to play a game with him. Sometimes he became so swept up in the game it would be the middle of the night before he would return, and he would always have to be reprimanded for missing a mission order. 

That had all ended when Kase had died. He had stopped going to play then. It had taken the death of Persia and the brief dismantling of Weiss for him to go back to the sport. 

Aya unfolded his arms and let them fall uselessly to his sides. Ken would have been happy if he could have kept playing soccer even after Kase had died and killed his love for the sport. He would have been happier if he could have continued to play professionally. But sometimes things were not meant to be. 

Without Weiss, he had nothing. But Ken and Youji and Omi, they all had lives of their own they could live. Sometimes he wondered how things would be if Weiss had never regrouped. 

He closed his eyes. No use dwelling on things that could never change. 

For nearly two hours the kids ran their drills and had mock matches. Aya watched them, but it was not the kids that he focused on. He watched Ken and how he interacted with them and around them, listened to his words and watched his expressions change. A laugh when a kid made a simple mistake, smiling when they were able to work together to pull of something he had explained to them. Aya watched the kids and how they affected Ken and Ken alone, nothing else. 

It was dusk before the kids began to break up and go their own ways. Aya stood up and walked over to stand at the edge of the field. Ken was talking with a group of parents while their children, restless, ran around them in circles. Finally, their parents took the hint that they were ready to go home, and with smiles and words of parting to Ken, left with their children tugging on their arms and forcing them along. It was probably past dinnertime and their empty stomachs were aching. 

Aya glanced down. A forgotten soccer ball lay at his feet. He nudged it with the toe of his shoe, and as Ken turned to face him, pulled back his leg and kicked. Ken easily blocked, using the inside of his foot to stop the ball, and then flipping it up. He bounced it on his knee for a moment before picking it up with both hands. 

"Are you bored out of your mind?" 

Aya shrugged. "Not really." 

"Liar." 

"No," Aya said. "It was... interesting." 

Ken inclined his head, balancing the soccer ball against his hip. "Interesting?" 

"Better than hordes of teenage girls at the store." 

"So it's the lesser of two evils." 

"Something like that." 

Ken smiled slightly, rolling the ball back and forth in his hands. He dropped it to the ground after a moment and kicked it from one foot to the other. 

"Can you goalie for me?" 

Aya blinked, surprised. "I'm not any good at sports." 

"It's not that hard." Ken flipped the ball into the air and bounced it off the top of his head. He caught it as it came back down. "Think of it more like a mission. You're good at fighting. You should be able to dodge a ball." 

Aya wanted to argue that there was something quiet different between bullets whizzing at your head than a soccer ball, but he doubted that Ken would have listened to him. Shrugging, he trotted across the field to stand before the goal. He could see Ken grinning even from his distance away from him. 

He saw the ball coming toward him and knew that he could stop it. It wasn't that hard. But right as the ball came close enough for him to bat out of the way, it past him in a blur. He felt his fingertips brush along its surface, but it was not enough to stop its momentum. It barreled into the net behind him. 

Ken laughed. "Yeah, okay. Maybe you do just suck." 

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." Aya picked up the ball and pitched it back to him. Ken settled it against his hip again. 

"Hey, if I can't beat you at paintball, at least let me have this." He picked up the netted bag from where he had discarded it and slipped the ball inside. "C'mon, let's go. We can probably get back in time to help Omi and Youji close up." 

The street lights were coming on as they walked down the paved pathways through the park. The sun was just beginning to set in the sky, casting everything in shades of gold and pale blue. Aya pressed his hands into his pockets, head bowed, watching the pavement as it passed beneath his feet. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realized it was rude to ask. It would be stepping beyond an unseen boundary. But the words were leaving his mouth before he could stop them. 

"Why don't you play anymore?" 

Ken looked up at him, startled. "What?" His expression relaxed after a moment, softening. "You mean soccer?" 

Aya nodded. 

Ken was silent for a moment. Finally, he shrugged. "I have more fun with the kids," he replied. "Teaching them is more fun than playing." 

It was a lie. Aya knew only because when he was lying, Ken could not look a person in the eye. He would look at anything else, the floor, the ceiling, the walls, anything to keep from making eye contact. His voice was the only thing that made it seem real. His voice never betrayed his words. 

"Really," Aya murmured. 

"Yeah, really," Ken said. Irritation sparked in his voice. "Why do you care so much anyway?" 

"You shouldn't stop doing something that's important to you just because of one person." 

He had said it. He had not said a name, but Ken did not need a name. His words said it clearly enough. 

"It's not because of Kase," Ken said softly, but anger still sparked in his voice. "It's not." He looked up suddenly. "And what about you? You said you used to play paintball and surf and all of that, and you just quit. Why? Because of your sister?" 

Aya lifted his head and stared at him. Ken could only look back for a moment. The anger fled from his face, instant regret filling him for his words. Aya had never said it, but the other members in Weiss knew not to ever mention his sister to him. Ken had not forgotten. He had said it purposefully to get a rise out of him. 

"Let's go," Aya said quietly. 

He started forward, not bothering to wait and see if Ken was following. 

"Hey, Aya, come on... I didn't mean to say it like that." 

"Are you coming or not?" 

He heard Ken sigh. The younger man hastened his steps to catch up to him. He said nothing to him. There was nothing to be said. 

The store was already closed up for the night when they arrived. Aya walked around the side of the building to come in through the back entrance, Ken following at his heels. 

He knew it was not worth it to be angry or upset with Ken. But at the same time he could not help but feeling that way. What Ken said, he said out of anger. Unfortunately, when Ken was angry, he tended to be tactless. He would always say the truth, whether or not it was wanted or needed to be said. Aya had never enjoyed the feeling of having the truth thrown into his face. 

Yes, it was because of his sister. A lot of things had changed in his life after she had fallen into a coma. Too many things. But hearing it said aloud, how jaded and cynical he had become, that hurt. 

"Aya?" 

He glanced back, his hand on the door knob. Ken shifted uncomfortably. 

"Don't bother apologizing," Aya said before he could speak. "I started it." 

Ken sighed. "You're just really good at pissing me off, do you know that?" 

"I know." 

He opened the door into the basement. He paused, hand hovering over the knob. It seemed they had company. 

Youji sat on the couch, arms sprawled out across its back. Omi was perched on a chair across from him. Birman, a manila folder tucked beneath her arm, stood before the screen that Persia appeared on. 

Youji tossed him a grin. 

"Hey guys. Mission order." 

Aya sighed. Great. What a lovely way to end the day. 


	4. Call and Answer

**Author's Notes:** I sincerely apologize for the lateness of this. If you've followed me through this far faithfully, thank you so much. Words cannot say how much I appreciate the feedback I've received on this fic. 

I apologize in advance for the ending of this part, but please stayed tune for the next and final part. I hope I can finish it more promptly this time. ^^ 

--------

**Part Four**  
_Call and Answer_

Ken barely contained his sigh as the screen flickered out, erasing the image of a computer generated Persia and immersing the room in darkness. Omi stood up and turned on the overhead light, leaving all of them in a dim, hardly generous glow. 

The mission was like all others. The nature never did change. A faction composed of crooked doctors were taking newborn children from the hospital and selling them to slave traffickers that in turn sold the infants on the black market. The parents of the children were told that their infants died of natural causes, that they did everything in their power to save their lives, but 'sometimes these things happened.' 

"Your target is the director of this trade, Fuji Takashiro, and to destroy the base of operations itself," Birman explained. She glanced around. "Are you all in?" 

Ken let his eyes drift to Aya. He stood with his back to the wall as he always did, arms folded, head bowed. For Aya, it was never a question of whether he went or did not. It was always obey and proceed with orders without question. Ken supposed it easy for him to be that way. Without morals, it was easy to do anything. 

"I'm in," Ken said. He stood up, stretching his arms out behind his neck and cracking his knuckles. He saw Youji cringe from the corner of his eye and resisted the urge to grin. Youji always twitched uncontrollably when he popped his joints. It was one of the few things that got to him. 

"Me too," Omi echoed. 

"And me," Youji said. 

Birman turned slightly, a hand on her hip as she angled herself to face Aya. "Then everyone." She did not need to ask him. She already knew that he was in. 

Aya pushed away from the wall. "Let's go," he intoned softly, and the others followed him without question. Ken always thought it strange -- Weiss had no 'leader and his followers' system. Yet somehow Aya always had a way of taking complete control of the situation and of them. No one ever complained. It was just the way things were. 

He trooped up the stairs to his room to change into more 'mission efficient' clothing. Honestly, he figured as long as he had his bugnuks, he would be fine no matter what his attire was. Why he dressed in one thing specifically for missions was more for convenience than anything else. It was easier to clean blood, dirt, mud, and everything else thrown at him from just one outfit rather than five or ten. It kept his laundry loads smaller. He knew that Youji, on the other hand, just liked to dress in the same thing to reaffirm to the world that he was (in his own words) indeed a super hero. 

The others were waiting downstairs for him. Somehow he always was the last one down the stairs. Late to everything, always last to know. It sucked. 

"You'll come with me," Aya said. 

Ken blinked. "Eh?" 

"Omi and me are going to be wiring up the bombing system to take our their base," Youji said. "You and Aya will take out the target." 

Seemed like Youji and Omi were getting the better end of the deal, but Ken held his tongue. "All right." 

Aya was silent as he lead the way to the car -- not that Ken expected words from him. Aya rarely did speak on missions unless absolutely necessary, and especially not on the way to or back. He had too much on his mind in those moments. All of them did. 

In the beginning the silence had bothered Ken. But over time it had developed into a companionable silence more than an awkward one. They understood each other better and how each of their minds worked. It was not necessary to have to share words any longer. 

Still, sometimes it could be annoying. Sometimes it was so quiet Ken wanted to jump up and scream at the top of his lungs just to make sure he was still alive and everyone could still see him. But he figured that if he did that, Aya would probably throw him head first into the nearest wall. The temptation to scream never did outweigh that possible outcome. He would rather keep silent than have his head crushed. 

Youji and Omi were waiting for them outside of the warehouse when Aya pulled up in his car. Ken glanced around his surroundings as he stepped out of the car into the darkness. The warehouse was nestled between several abandoned buildings. He doubted that -- aside from the ones dealing in the black market trade within the warehouse -- they would have much resistance. 

But the eerie quiet bothered him. It was the classic movie style paranoia. When it was quiet, it inevitably meant something bad was going to happen. 

"We're going to wire up the bombing system," Omi said, voice hushed despite the fact they were completely alone in the empty lot outside of the warehouse. "Make sure you keep your headphones on so I can tell you when we're all done. Here." He handed a headset to Ken. Ken pulled it over his head, positioning the mic so that it was near his mouth but still not in his way. 

"You'll have maybe five minutes after I trigger it," Omi continued, "so make sure you're near an exit." 

"I don't think the target is going to conveniently be near an exit so we can kill him, Omi," Ken said, somewhat sourly. 

"It'll be all right," Aya intoned quietly. Ken glanced up at him. There was a time -- there were still times -- that Aya's perpetual calm had frustrated him to no end. But now it almost seemed comforting. 

He felt a hand suddenly drop to the top of his head and ruffle up his hair. Immediately and instinctly riled up, he whirled around to face Youji. 

"Hey--!" 

"Be careful," Youji said. "This place is going to go boom and it would suck if you guys were there to watch it firsthand. C'mon, Omitchi." 

He strolled away, hands thrust casually into his pockets. Omi hastened to catch up with him. 

"I'll contact you before I trigger it! Be careful!" 

Ken shook his head as he watched the two disappear into the darkness. Youji and Omi were probably the most relaxed, casual ones of all of them. They were serious about what they did, and they did it well, but they never let it get to them. Omi always had a smile ready and Youji a stupid joke. Despite everything that had happened to them, they could still exist and move on with life. Ken thought it almost admirable. 

"Come on," Aya interrupted his thoughts. 

He was already walking away. Ken trotted along to catch up with him. 

They entered a building through a side door. It seemed that everyone had gone home for the evening. The emergency lights system was on, casting the entire area in a dim glow and making it possible to see only the vague, black shapes of things. Even Aya, standing right beside him, was nothing more than a tall, black shadow. 

He heard his headset crackling to life before Omi's voice invaded his head. "There should be a staircase near you guys that leads up to Fuji's office. We're wiring up the bombs now." 

"Already?" Ken hissed. "Give us a little time to kill the guy, wouldja!" 

He could hear Youji saying something, but could not make out the words. Omi snapped at him to be quiet. 

"Sorry, Ken-kun, but we want to get out of here as soon as we can," he said. "Fuji Takashiro has a lot of pretty decent fighters he hired and we don't want to get caught fighting them while the place is blowing up." 

"All right, all right," Ken muttered. "We're going after Fuji now." 

The headset crackled again before dying in his ear. His sigh was barely contained. 

"What?" Aya asked. 

"Nothing, we just have to do this real quick like. Can you see a staircase?" 

He could see vaguely Aya glancing around. "Because I can't see shit," he added after a moment. "It's too dark in here..." 

"It's this way," Aya said, and before Ken could stop him he was walking away. 

"Hey, hey, hey, wait up!" Something about being alone and lost in the darkness when the place was going to be blown into nothing soon did not appeal to him. Aya slowed his pace somewhat. Ken stuck close to his side, not wanting to lose him. 

He heard the sound of boots clicking on what sounded like steel. Frowning, he glanced up. Aya was suddenly a lot taller than him... 

Oh. Stairs. 

"Huh, I guess you found the staircase," Ken murmured, laughing sheepishly. 

He found the railing in the darkness, and using it to guide him along, followed up Aya the steel staircase. It brought them to a landing that overlooked the entire warehouse. An office with glass windows to overlook likely the production of whatever had been made in the warehouse before Fuji Takashiro had taken over sat on the landing. Aya dropped down to his knees and crept along beneath the window. The light was better up here, Ken noted; most of it was coming from the office. Fuji Takashiro was in there sitting like a duck waiting for its head to be blown away. 

"Stay here," Aya said softly. 

"What?" Ken burst out. He quickly realized his voice was too loud and hushed down to a whisper. "I can help too," he hissed. 

"I'll get it done with faster," Aya replied. "Wait here." 

"But--" 

"Wait." His voice was soft but firm, leaving no room for debate. Ken made an irritated sound. 

Aya stood when he reached the door. He glanced at Ken just briefly before turning the knob and stepping inside. Ken could hear Fuji Takashiro beginning to demand who he was and what he was doing, and then the door slammed closed, leaving him completely alone. 

He pulled down the headphones on his ears, allowing them to fall to rest on his shoulders. Aya was doing it all of the time now, forcing him to stay behind while he went ahead to take out the target. And his reasons always left something to be desired. That he could do it faster seemed to be his favorite... 

Ken cursed below his breath. Aya thought he couldn't handle it, that was it. He thought he would crack under the pressure. Something like a low growl escaped him. He was going to punch the living daylights out of Aya when he had the chance... 

"Let's go." 

Aya was suddenly standing beside him. Ken leapt to his feet. "I could have done something, you know, you didn't have to--" 

"Shh!" Aya hissed. Ken closed his mouth obediently. 

He stood silently, watching Aya, and listening. Head inclined, Aya seemed to be searching for something, a sound, or movement in the darkness. Ken saw nor heard anything. 

"The bombs," Aya said finally. 

"What about them?" 

"They're going off." 

Omi had always been incredibly precise in his bomb construction. The right amount of gunpowder, the exact time, all perfectly orchestrated. A nuclear physicist would have been proud. 

But it was all too precise, almost too perfect. Aya could hear the countdown in his head, see the numbers slowly clicking by. Tick tock, tick tock. Time was up. 

Ken knew it too. He saw it in his face. 

"We're not gonna make it." 

Tick tock. 

Aya could hear it happening, the chain reaction of one bomb after another. One set off, setting off another. A destructive domino pattern. For knowing what inevitable doom was coming, he felt amazingly calm. 

"No," he answered slowly, "we're not." 

It happened too quickly for him to realize what was happening at all. One moment he was looking into the fear-filled eyes of Ken, seeing how determined he was to not show that fear, and then the world was crashing down on him, the roar of destruction all around him. 

And then as suddenly as it happened, it stopped. Silence fell. He lay flat on his stomach, breathing slowly, straining to see through the clouds of dust circulating through the air. Pain seeped up his legs. He was injured, but he could not tell where or how badly -- only feel the blood dripping down his body. 

He pressed his hands to the ground, feeling concrete crack and crumple beneath the weight of his palms. He tried to breathe in, but it was not oxygen that filled his lungs, but dust. Retching, he put his hand to his mouth, coughing against it. Blood came up as he did. 

The thick, black clouds were beginning to settle down around him. But he still could not see Ken. Dark shapes appeared through the haze of dust, but he did not know which or if any were Ken. A sudden fear gripped him. Where was Ken? What happened to him? 

Aya tried to sit up, but something tugged him back down. Angling himself to look over his shoulder, he saw that his leg was trapped beneath the fallen debris. It was that pain that had assaulted him when he had come to. Not broken, he knew that much, but probably sprained. 

He pulled, and with one quick, hard tug, he freed his leg from the confines of the debris. "Ken," he called. Dust assaulted him and he coughed a moment. "Ken," he tried again. 

He heard it just barely, the faint sound of a groan of pain not three feet away from him. He followed the faint voice, straining to not put pressure on his pained leg. 

Ken lay in his own pool of blood. Aya's eyes passed over him, quick and calculating. The blood was surrounding his head. Something had delivered a quick blow to the skull. Head wounds bled more than any other wound, no matter the severity, but Aya could not help but feel suddenly worried. A loss of blood could kill him. He could go into shock, have a concussion... 

"Ken?" He dropped down beside him, touching a hand to his forehead. Ken moved under his palm, his eyes slowly flicking open. 

"Aya," he said, voice pained. "Hey. I was right." 

"What about?" 

"We didn't make it." 

"We're still alive. That's what matters." 

A blow to the head like that, and he likely had a concussion. Great. 

"You okay?" Ken asked. 

"You're worse." 

Ken grinned, a smile strained at its edges. "You always know how to perk a guy up, Aya." 

His eyes were closed, even as he spoke. Aya wondered if his voice was even reaching him at all. 

He couldn't let him fall asleep. If he had a concussion and he fell unconscious, Aya didn't know if he would ever be able to wake up at all. He wouldn't let that happen. 

"Ken?" 

"Uhm." 

"Talk to me." 

Something shifted between them, the rustle of clothing as Ken moved, movements slow and painful. Aya pressed a hand to his arm. 

"Don't move. Just talk to me." 

Ken murmured something soft and indiscernable. "What about?" he managed finally, voice low and strained through the pain. 

"Anything." 

There was a long silence. Aya was reaching out to touch him again, to feel that he was still breathing, when Ken began to speak again. Tone soft, words punctuated by gasps of pain every few moments, he talked. 

"I miss soccer," he said. "I miss playing it. I miss everybody on the team. I miss the championship games. I even miss drilling at the crack of dawn on muddy fields in the freezing rain. 

"I miss Kase. I miss my parents, and the kids at the orphanage I grew up in..." 

He drew in a sharp breath. 

"Ken..." 

"I miss Yuriko." 

_Yuriko_, Aya thought. He remembered the girl. Ken had never been around when she was there, shirked both his duties at the flower shop and with Weiss. He had smiled more often then, genuine, real smiles. Smiled like Aya had never seen him smile before. 

"What else?" 

There was no response. Only soft, uneven breathing. Aya drew himself, balancing his weight on his elbow. Ken was now staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. 

"Sometimes I think I'd rather die than live like this." 

"Don't say something like that," Aya said, low and warning. 

Ken closed his eyes. "I just... want to rest... so much..." 

Rest. It would have been nice. To not have to do this nightly, to not kill like they did. But there never rest for the weary. 

"I know, Ken... I know." 

Silence. 

"Ken?" 

Nothing but silence. 

"Ken, answer me." 

Nothing. 

"Ken! _Ken_!" 


	5. If You Fall

**Author's Notes:** Oh... what can I say... Let's say it was a combination of interests going else where (curse you, Prince of Tennis) for a time as well as losing some interest in this series... as well as that picky thing called real life, and maybe a few other things. No good excuses, really, a year was way too long to update. 

But it's done now. Finally _done_. Thank you, everyone, for all the encouraging reviews I've received on this story, and for sticking with it even in moments of ... really delayed updates. I hope this makes up for it and you enjoy! 

**

* * *

**

Part Five  
_If You Fall_

Guilt was no friend of his. Still, it clung to him like it belonged. 

Aya could barely remember what happened. Everything had moved in such a quick, rabid blur of colors and sounds. He remembered yelling out to Ken, but there was no response, not even the sound of his ragged breathing. He remembered the sudden fear that gripped him, and that was when everything faded away. Maybe he lost consciousness, he had no idea -- all he knew was that someone had taken him by the shoulders and dragged him free of the wreckage of the warehouse. And now he sat, alone in the basement of the flower shop, while Birman and Kritiker's doctor saw to Ken. 

It was an unspoken rule that they never go to the hospital. Even the most life threatening of injuries were brought back here, and Birman would come to take care of things. Kritiker had on staff a fully equipped, well-trained doctor, but the greatest of his assets was no doubt his ability to keep his mouth shut. Aya was not sure if the man even knew what it was they did to get themselves torn up as much as they did, but he must have suspected. Even so, he never asked. He came, he took care of them, and he left, never once questioning. They came to depend on that silence. 

He sat, elbows on his knees, hands clasped and leaning forward, eyes boring into the floor. It was stupid, the feeling of guilt that hung over him. There was nothing he could have done. It was not his responsibility to do something to protect Ken, to save him from what happened. Even if it was, even if he had been given such a ridiculous duty, he would not have been able to do anything. Everything had happened too quickly. 

But still he felt guilty, as though it was all his fault. 

And maybe it was. He could have told Ken to go with Omi and Youji. He had not needed his help to kill the target. Ken would have been angry with him, probably argued with him as much as he had when Aya had told him to not come with him to kill the man, but in the end, he would have had his way. Ken would have been with Omi and Youji when all hell had broken loose, and he would have been the only one to suffer because of it. Or maybe he could have escaped just as easily on his own, without Ken to slow him. 

Who knew? There were too many what if's and could-have-been's, and Aya was not the type of person to sit and harp on the things that he could not change. What had happened, it happened. That was all. Nothing would change that. Not a thousand regrets, not a million apologies. It was done. 

The stairs creaked in protest of the sudden weight assaulted upon them. Aya lifted his head slightly to see first a pair of legs, slowly meandering down the stairs, followed by the bare torso unmistakably belonging to Youji. Omi had enough modesty to not walk around naked. Youji had never had that much concern for his roommates. 

He paused at the base of the stairs, appearing to survey his dark surroundings. Then he seemed to shrug, a silent dismissal in his own mind, and he passed the light switch, fingers lifting just briefly as though to flip it before deciding not to bother. Aya watched him through heavily lidded eyes; he was exhausted. Sitting up was an effort all its own. 

The room was lit up for just a moment as Youji flipped open his lighter to light the cigarette that had suddenly materialized in his mouth. He took one long drag from it, breathing in deep, and then slowly let the smoke sift from his partially opened lips. He ambled over to the couch where Aya sat, flopped beside him, and held out the cigarette to him. 

"You need this more than me," he said. 

Aya glanced at him, but Youji did not look back. He simply held out the cigarette, waiting for Aya to take it from him. 

After a long moment, he did. Almost hesitantly he put it to his lips. Like any other teenager, he had once experimented with the cancer sticks, but that was all. He had not had a taste for them then, nor did he have a taste for them now. But Youji was convinced there was nothing more relaxing than a cigarette. 

And sometimes, Youji could be right. 

He took a quick, deep drag from the cigarette, and proceeded to nearly hack up his lungs coughing. Beside him, Youji smirked. 

"You and poor little Kenken," he said. "Can't stomach it, can you?" 

"No," Aya answered dryly, holding it out to Youji. His eyes were watering. 

"S'all right," Youji said. He accepted the cigarette and continued puffing on it, perfectly content. "Asuka'd always get on my case about smoking. Said I was going to die before I was thirty." 

Aya glanced at him. It was rare that Youji spoke openly about Asuka. They all knew the story, how painful it had been for him, and how it still haunted him. But they all let it be. It was the same as how they all knew of Omi and his relation to the Takatori family, and Ken and his damaged career in the soccer league, and of Aya and his comatose sister. They knew, but they never spoke. 

"But you know," Youji continued, "I don't think it's going to be cancer that's going to do me in." 

"Isn't that morbid?" Aya murmured, voice soft and inflection bland. Morbid maybe, he thought, but true. It was not going to be cancer or heart disease or old age that would kill them. It would be this life they lived day to day. Someday, it would kill them. That, Aya had never doubted. 

"Probably," Youji agreed. 

"Ken," Aya said, abruptly. "How is he?" 

Youji stretched his arms across the back of the couch, tilting his head back and allowing his eyes to drift closed. The cigarette hung limply from one side of his mouth. Aya suddenly wanted to punch him. He was too casual. He was acting as though it were nothing, as though it did not affect him at all, and Aya hated him for it; hated how he could _do_ that with such ease. 

But at the same time, he almost envied him for that simple ease he possessed. Maybe it was easier to take life and all it threw if you were able to exist the way Youji did. 

Sometimes, Youji seemed more detached and void of life than even he was. 

"Well, I'm not going to say he's fine and dandy," Youji replied. 

"Then what _are_ you going to say?" Aya demanded. His patience was wearing thin. Youji was unmoved by his irritation. 

"They patched him up. He lost a lot of blood from that head wound, so that doctor had to go off and get blood for a transfusion, but they've got all that hooked up now. I'm guessing he'll be okay once that's all done. But he woke up on his own, so that's a good sign. Birman wants us to keep waking him up just in case he has a concussion. Omi's with him now." 

He wasn't going to die, Aya thought, but it was only a small relief. He was still hurting. That they could do nothing about. 

But he was alive. For that, he should have been grateful. 

"He was asking about you," Youji interjected. "Kept asking if you were all right." 

"He should be thinking about himself," Aya muttered. 

Youji snorted. "You don't know Ken at all if you think he's going to be worried about himself right now instead of the rest of us," he said. "Ken's selfless like that. Don't you remember, that one time, when he got himself shot through the shoulder? He wouldn't let us do a damn thing about it until Omi was taken care of, and all Omitchi had were some bruises and cuts." 

Aya remembered, and he remembered a thousand and more incidents like it. Ken was always quick to shove away their care. He would say it was nothing, that he could take care of it well enough on his own, and that they should just take care of themselves before him. Aya remembered several times he had passed out from the pain he overlooked in favor of their own, as well. 

That idiot. 

"You going to go see him or what?" 

Aya stood. "I guess." 

"Well, don't go leaping for joy or anything." 

Aya favored him a single bland glance. Youji just grinned happily back at him. With a roll of his eyes, Aya turned and started up the stairs. 

What was he supposed to say to him? 'Sorry you nearly died.' Yeah, right. That was comforting. But knowing Ken, he would just look up at him with wide, almost startled brown eyes, and then he would break into a smile and laugh at him. Ken was always laughing at him. It annoyed him, once upon a time, but he had grown accustomed to that quiet, amused laughter, whether it was Ken grinning while Aya perplexed over a flower arrangement, or smirked as Aya complained about him leaving his dirty shoes in the basement. It was when the laughter stopped he knew something was wrong. 

He doubted Ken was laughing now. 

Omi was coming out of his room. Aya glanced up at him, finding the younger man's face tight with concern, eyes soft. Seeing him so worried did not set Aya at ease. 

"Aya-kun," Omi began, and he tried to smile reassuringly, "I think--" 

"He'll be all right," Aya interrupted, knowing already it was the words Omi wanted to say but did not yet have the strength to. He could see doubt in those eyes, and maybe that was what bothered him more than the worry. 

Omi nodded quickly. "Yeah. It's Ken-kun. He'll be okay." 

"What did Birman say?" The woman was gone now, driving the doctor back to his residence, and probably slipping him a substantial amount of money to insure his continued silence. 

"We have to keep checking on him throughout the night," Omi answered, "because of the concussion. He just needs to rest up, mostly." 

Which was like telling the sun to not rise and Youji not to crack bad pick-up lines, Aya thought dryly. 

"He's awake?" Aya asked. 

"For now," Omi answered. "I tried to get him to sleep, but he said you were probably off guilt-tripping yourself, so he wanted to see you..." 

Natch. Aya couldn't help but smile slightly. 

"I'll try to get him to sleep." 

He moved past Omi, toward Ken's room. His dirty shoes and clothes were lying in the hallway, as usual, as well as the duffel bag he stuffed full of soccer equipment and an old, deflated ball. Ken had never really been one for cleaning up, Aya thought, resting his hand on the door knob and turning slowly. Never been one for anything having to do with responsibility, really, not unless it was Weiss... 

Ken lay in his bed when Aya entered. Around him was an assortment of machines, heart rate monitors, and the drip of the blood transfusion, needles and tubes sticking out of his arms, and his body bandaged heavily. His eyes turned slowly to the door, dull and not quite focusing. It took him a moment to realize it was Aya, and then he smiled. 

"Yo." 

"Hey," Aya answered. 

"Looks worse than it is," Ken said, and his voice was a low croak. Aya frowned. 

"Sure." 

"Sit down, geez." 

He obliged him, sitting down in the chair pulled close to the bed, no doubt previously occupied by Youji or Omi. Aya almost hoped he was right, and it did look worse than it was, because he looked like absolute hell. 

"You okay?" Ken asked. 

"Why are you being so concerned for me? You were hurt." 

"I told you, I'm okay." 

Why the hell did he always have to be such a hero? Maybe for those kids he played soccer with, but not for them. For him, and Youji and Omi, he was no greater than they were. They all bled, they all made mistakes. But Ken shrugged it all away, tried to smile, and pretended like everything was okay. 

"Youji said you asked for me." 

"Ah, right..." Aya watched him, his hand twitching to rise and run through his hair in that sheepish way of his, but the needles kept him restrained. He gave a useless shrug. "I was wondering if you were okay." 

"I'm fine." 

"Yep, grumpy as usual. You're fine." Ken grinned. Sometimes, Aya thought Ken was the only person who could stare death in the eyes and smile. 

But that wasn't true. He knew Ken was afraid. He had heard fear in his voice as they lay there together, fear that he might die, and regret that he wasn't able to live his life the way he wanted. But he had also heard cold, hard resolve, when he uttered the words, '_Sometimes I think I'd rather die than live like this._' 

And those words frightened Aya. 

He didn't ask him about it. Couldn't bring himself to. Maybe he was afraid of what the answer would be. 

"Hey, Aya." 

"What?" 

"I guess..." Ken paused, uncomfortable. "I mean... well, thanks, you know?" 

Aya glanced up at him. "What?" 

"You helped me back there. If you hadn't been there, I'd probably..." He trailed off, not needing to say the words. They both knew. 

Aya shook his head. "I didn't do anything." 

"Yeah, you did." 

Aya didn't answer him. 

"I heard you calling me," Ken said softly. "When I fell unconscious, I could hear you, and... shit, I'm not going to get mushy on you. Just thanks, okay?" There was a faint pink tinge to his cheeks. Aya felt his lips tugging up into an amused smile. 

"You're welcome." 

"Damn straight." 

Maybe he had helped, in some small way. Talking to him at all, keeping him conscious for as long as he could. But more than that, too, and Aya thought maybe that was what Ken was thanking him for. He listened. He listened to him talk about his fears, his regrets, and he heard the soft sorrow in his voice. No one else had ever heard those words from him. Maybe to say them at all helped. 

Ken helped him, too. Dragging him to that soccer practice, laughing at him, forcing him to share that blanket. It was sad to realize he didn't know that he had smiled so much since his sister's accident. 

"... thank you, too." 

There was no response. 

"Ken?" 

The same fear he felt when Ken did not answer him then came over him again, and he reached out a hand, touching his shoulder. Ken murmured softly, something inaudible, letting out a slow, steady breath. He was asleep. 

Aya sighed. "I'm pathetic." 

He watched Ken for a moment, the gentle rise and fall of his chest, and listened to his soft breathing. He would be all right. It would be a few days, maybe a few weeks before he could play soccer with the kids again, but he would be the same Ken again. 

It was the two of them he doubted would be the same. 

He stood, pushing back his chair, and leaned over the bed. "You're an idiot, you know?" he asked quietly. 

And he bowed his head, brushing his lips softly over Ken's.


End file.
